You’d think after the embarrassment that was James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces, Oprah would be a bit more cautious about picking her non-fiction. Here we are several years later and a similar story is breaking, only now it’s affecting the movie industry.
Variety reports that the Holocaust memoir, Angel at the Fence, which was already slated to be adapted into a feature film, has been scrapped. The book was scheduled for a February release, but allegations from author Herman Rosenblat’s friends and family have caused the writer to admit he falsified the story of meeting his future wife in a concentration camp.
So much for Oprah’s ”single greatest love story… ever told on the air.”
Call me a bit cynical, but I don’t understand why the authenticity of Rosenblat’s story has to mean no movie. Okay, maybe it isn’t true, but it’s still a good story. That’s why Oprah, and her million-viewer audience, were so drawn to it. In the world of movie-making, we expect this kind of dramatic license anyway, so the fact that it’s fabricated isn’t that big a deal - just don’t try to pass it off as fact. Maybe there won’t be a book now, but with the memoir originally slated for a February release, there has to be a manuscript. Move on with the movie - give us Angel at the Fence on film.
